Telecommunications equipments involve the use of rapidly evolving technology and techniques. This continuous evolution obviously tend to render the products rapidly out of date, thus preventing the manufacturers to take profit from the expected return on investments.
A partial solution to this need for continuous evolving techniques can be found in the possibilities for a manufacturer to base his design of new products on the use of different cards that are assembled in order to embody a more powerful and more sophisticated product. Such a solution is particularly used in the field of personal computer where new products are based on the use of many different sub-elements and interface cards.
In the telecommunication field the market discloses some stackable or rack-mounted products. This provides some possibilities of evolution and reduced size.
However this solution is not entirely satisfactory. Indeed, in this field the possibilities to assemble different cards and sub-elements provided by different telecommunication manufacturers appears limited since no accurate common way of connection for the different elements actually exists. Additionally, the known solution do not achieve the possibility of hot-plugging of any element on the stack, lateral extension, etc. . . . , which would make the design and use of equipment much easier.
Generally network design includes several products interconnected together where the customer would prefer a single product line proposal, easier to install, to manage, open to evolution.